He made a name for himself and went down in record as one of the first Kenyans to leave the nation for further studies abroad in the 1940s.
Born in Nyawara, Gem, currently under Siaya County, Argwings Kodhek was also one of the first Kenyans to marry a white lady, the first one probably being Jomo Kenyatta who married Briton Edna Clarke for a few years.
Commonly referred to as ‘Agwingi’ by his remaining tribesmen, Kodhek was educated at St Mary’s Yala and then the Maseno School before he joined Makerere University.
In 1947, he moved to the University of South Wales on a scholarship and returned to the country in 1951, after graduating as a lawyer and a social scientist.
Coming at a time when the British colonialists had completely dominated the nation, he overcame all odds to set kick off his legal practice, most of his clients being Mau Mau freedom fighters who had been arrested in the forests trying to push out the white settlers.
The highly aggressive lawyer criss-crossed colonial courts fighting for the convicts and became the lawmaker for Gem when Kenya gained independence in 1963.
He died in a mysterious accident in January 29, 1969 in a road that now bears his name, 'Argwings Kodhek Road' in Nairobi.
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